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“My publicist, remember? Also, your publicist. Welcome to Hollywood.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Mm.” Katie pulled Wil down the hall. “First shower, then strategy. I’m assuming you fed the cats.”
“I fed the cats. I couldn’t find your bathroom in the wall, so I used the hall one. I couldn’t figure out the flush.”
Katie stopped and wrapped Wil in another hug. “I promise it will get easier. You won’t feel like this for long. I’m sorry I didn’t show you how to find my bathroom. No one’s ever slept in my room before!” She grinned, but Wil could see the strain behind it. “I will be a better hostess today.”
Wil stopped. She almost spoke. Then, she shook her head.
She’d started to tell Katie that she didn’t want Katie to be ahostessof any kind.
But wasn’t that what Wil was, a guest?
And as Katie pulled Wil toward the bedroom, where Almond Butter was curled up in her cat bed again and the covers were still rumpled, Wil realized that Katie had stepped so quickly into the role of cheerful minimizer, into gentle reframing, that Wil almost hadn’t noticed it wasn’t like Katie at all. This was something she’d learned in the years they were apart. The Katie who Wil knew had alwaysreacted,run through every scenario twice, exaggerated. She still did that, but only when the stakes were essentially zero.
It meant there were stakes here, and Wil didn’t know what all of them were.
She and Katie needed to talk.
Katie pulled her through her massive closet, then into a bathroom that was legitimately bigger than Wil’s bedroom. She worked another keypad that turned roughly three thousand showerheads on. They pointed in every direction inside a massive shower covered with tiny, pale holographic tiles. The light from the small windows around the room caught on the tiles and made them look likerainbows. There were shelves set in the shower holding plants, and one with a pristine row of fancy products.
“Wil.” Katie put her hands around Wil’s face. “Look at me for a second.”
Wil did. Itwasa relief. Wil let her eyes wander around every familiar part of Katie’s face, let herself remember that she understood this woman, and this woman had lived here for a long time and made this home. Wil knew that whatever Katie hadn’t been able to share with her, shehadshared important things, incredibly special things.
They trusted each other. They always had.
“I’m sorry,” Wil said.
Katie shook her head. “If I seem like I don’t think it’s a big deal, it’s only a coping mechanism.”
Katie pulled her hair over her shoulder. Something unknotted in Wil’s chest. “I’m actually glad to hear you say that.”
“Tell me why.” Katie stepped closer.
“Because I only want to be protected or handled if I’ve asked to be, or if I’m told you or someone else are doing so for reasons we’ve agreed on.”
Katie reached out and touched Wil’s hand, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “I’msorry. I actually have no idea how to… smash all of this together.” And then she made one of her gestures, and it did, itdidencompass the whole world they were living in right now.
Wil kissed Katie’s forehead.
Katie closed her eyes. “Theyarescary. I think I rushed you through a few steps. Would it be okay with you if we talked to Madelynn? You can constrict the conversation however you want. We can only talk about how you want to handle the publicity with the video I directed. Or open it up to being in California with me. Or—”
“About Ben?” Wil unbelted her robe.
Katie pulled off her nightshirt, shaking her head. “Whatever he says about this, he won’t know what he’s talking about, and whatever he says doesn’t have anything, for sure, to do with us.”
Wil wasn’t so certain.
Katie pulled her into the shower, and that helped, too. Nothing was too hot or too cold, and being massaged all over and getting clean was a real, solid feeling, and so was Katie as she turned Wil around and washed her hair, scraping her nails over her scalp.
Wil let Katie put some kind of conditioner in, too. She let her rub her with soap and a mitt that felt scratchy in an amazing way. Wil kissed her whenever she could, letting herself have what the kisses gave to her and what it did to her to touch Katie’s body, sliding soap over it.
Then they were just kissing, touching, and Wil could focus on Katie, excited in a way that was safe, familiar, and known, loving her. Loving the way Katie’s waist curved under her palm, the way she arched her back into Wil’s hands, the way she opened her mouth for Wil, twined her arms around Wil’s neck, thumbed over Wil’s hard nipples, bit her neck, breathed and moaned and saidyes, yes.
Just when Wil had backed her into the tiled wall, her thigh between Katie’s, her hand between her own legs, the water stopped. Wil and Katie’s kissing was suddenly loud in the tiled space.